I am a little confused on the messaging regarding conditioning volume. I’ve heard numerous times on BBM podcasts, forum, etc that individuals should strive to achieve and exceed the top end of the PA guidelines weekly. I’ve noted several other post responses in the forum that speak to the detriment of doing more than four hours per week of aerobic training with regards to negatively impacting strength training outcomes. Obviously, 4 hours is less than the 300 minutes in the guidelines. If strength is my focus, should I limit conditioning to four hours weekly or not? Thanks!
What posts are you referring to specifically? Happy to explain, though I suspect we’re missing some context here.
That said, I do not think it is possible for people to reach their maximum strength potential doing a lot of conditioning due to logistical and physiological constraints. Additionally, 4-hours of “real” conditioning would exceed the current guideline’s volume-load of 1000 MET-minutes/wk. For example, doing a “brisk” walk at 3-4 mph (hardly conditioning for trained individuals) for a total of 4 hours per week would be ~ 960 MET-minutes. Real conditioning would be much higher than that.
Lastly, I do not think most people should focus on maximal strength performance to the exclusion of all else for long stretches of time.
-Jordan
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I’m too lazy to find and reference the specific posts. I geuss the crux of my question is how much conditioning do you recommend? For instance, would conditioning listed in the templates plus 8k steps per day suffice for an individual concerned with strength?
I do not think “steps” count as conditioning for most trained individuals. It’s more physical activity than exercise and I don’t think it’s helping improve cardiorespiratory fitness.
Most of our templates have sufficient conditioning to meet or exceed guidelines. My recommendations for conditioning depends on the application. If you’re not a competitive powerlifter, strongman, Olympic lifter, or bodybuilder, I would program as much conditioning as you can manage logistically and physiologically, with the latter being highly dependent on training goals.
To illustrate the potential differences, consider the resources that need to be dedicated to lifting weights (and what’s left for conditioning) for a competitive powerlifter vs. someone training for general health? They’re both concerned with strength, but would have different recommendations.
If I were to know a bit more about you, I could make an initial recommendation, which would evolve over time based on your repsonse and preferences.
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Ok, I’m down for a free recommendation. 40 y/o male. 20+ year weight training hx. I’ve done the original strength templates, body building templates, powerbuilding 3, low fatigue etc. basically been using your templates for all of my training other than a six month period when I had a bbm coach since like 2017 or so. Competed a couple of times in powerlifting, no longer compete due to other life commitments (might in the future) but still train with the primary goal of maximal strength/hypertrophy. Best lifts recently are 585 dl 335 bench 425 squat @ low 180s bw. Currently doing LISS mostly zone 2 of 5 zone model, 150 minutes per week plus a HIIT session on the bike or rower without significant performance decrement that I’ve noticed. I’m tapering down significantly on conditioning at the moment because I’m in week 13 of the 4 day LISF template. Main goals are still strength and hypertrophy but I want to be more consistent with conditioning for overall health purposes and do as much as is possible while not tanking my lifting performance. 5’9.5” 183lbs this morning. 34 inch waist in the a.m. on an empty stomach.
Gotcha. Perhaps this will clear up the discrepancy here.
If your strength performance in the next few weeks is of primary importance, I think 100 to 150 min/wk of moderate conditioning is likely fine. A full taper would reduce this.
Outside of peaking however, I’d favor 2x to 2.5x that amount of conditioning, spread over all zones, e.g. z1-z5.
Just my 0.02
Ok, just to confirm that I understand, After this peak I should gradually increase my conditioning volume to 200-300 minutes weekly? Is the recommendation of 80% lower zones and 20% higher zones a good way to split up the minutes? I believe I read/heard this somewhere in bbm material.
Yes to all for a general starting point.
Thanks. Sincerely appreciate your help and all you do. Hope the hip heals up quickly!
Thanks! I hope the same. Good luck.